Challenge to new judgment not â€œsecond or successiveâ€

Posted Fri, June 25th, 2010 2:20 pm by Matthew Scarola

DISCLOSURE: Howe & Russell and Akin Gump represented the petitioner in this case, but I was not involved in the proceedings.

Under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b), state prisoners seeking federal habeas relief are prohibited from filing certain "second or successive" applications for relief, even if the claims made in those applications are meritorious. Yesterday, in Magwood v. Patterson (No. 09-158), the Court held that when a state prisoner obtains federal habeas relief and is re-sentenced, a habeas application challenging the new judgment is not "second or successive," even if the prisoner could have challenged the original sentence on the same ground.

Justice Thomas wrote the opinion of the Court, which Justice Scalia joined in full and which Justices Stevens, Breyer, and Sotomayor joined in large part. Explaining that the phrase "second or successive" is a term of art, the Court looked to the phrase's "statutory context" to determine its meaning. It noted that Section 2244(b) limits only "habeas corpus application[s] under §2254." Based on Section 2254(b)'s "text and the relief it provides," the Court thus concluded that the phrase ""second or successive' must be interpreted with respect to the judgment challenged."

The Court rejected the State's contention that the focus under Section 2254 is on the legality of the applicant's custody. First, it explained, Section 2254's "requirement of custody pursuant to a state-court judgment distinguishes [it] from other statutory provisions authorizing relief from constitutional violations." Second, a custody-based rule would anomalously inhibit "a prisoner who remains in continuous custody for a completely unrelated conviction [from challenging] his unrelated conviction for the first time."

The Court further rejected the State's argument that its interpretation better comported with the purpose of the statute "” viz., to prevent piecemeal litigation. The Court declined to "replace the [statute's] actual text with speculation as to Congress' intent," adding that it had "previously found Congress' use of the word "application' significant," and that a custody-based interpretation would ""elid[e] the difference between an "application' and a "claim.'"

The Court finally stressed the limited scope and implications of its holding. The procedural default rule, it emphasized, constrained prisoners' ability to bring abusive claims in the future. Not only did the Court explicitly decline to address whether Magwood's claim was so defaulted, but it also declined to answer whether a petitioner who is resentenced can challenge both his "new sentence [and] his original, undisturbed conviction."

Justice Breyer concurred, joined by Justices Stevens and Sotomayor. He emphasized that the Court "neither purports to alter nor does alter [its] holding in Panetti v. Quarterman" (2007). That case, he explained, addressed filings directed toward "a state-court judgment already challenged in a prior §2254 application." Magwood is distinct, he suggested, because it considers "a habeas petition that is the first petition to address a new "state-court judgment' that has not "already [been] challenged in a prior §2254 application.'"

In an opinion joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Ginsburg and Alito, Justice Kennedy dissented. He argued that "a petitioner loses his right to challenge [an] error by not raising a claim at the first opportunity after his claim becomes ripe." "Because Magwood had a full and fair opportunity to adjudicate his death-eligibility claim in his first petition in 1983, his 1997 petition raising this claim [for the first time] is barred as "second or successive'" within the meaning of Section 2244(b). To allow Magwood to raise that claim now, he concluded, would be to permit an abuse of the writ.

Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. ComerThe Missouri Department of Natural Resources' express policy of denying grants to any applicant owned or controlled by a church, sect or other religious entity violated the rights of Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc., under the free exercise clause of the First Amendment by denying the church an otherwise available public benefit on account of its religious status.

Hernández v. Mesa(1) A Bivens remedy is not available when there are "special factors counselling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress," and the court recently clarified in Ziglar v. Abbasi what constitutes a special factor counselling hesitation; the court of appeals should consider how the reasoning and analysis in Ziglar bear on the question whether the parents of a victim shot by a U.S. Border Patrol agent may recover damages for his death; (2) It would be imprudent for the Supreme Court to decide Jesus Hernandez’s Fourth Amendment claim when, in light of the intervening guidance provided in Abbasi, doing so may be unnecessary to resolve this particular case; and (3) with respect to Hernandez’s Fifth Amendment claim, because it is undisputed that the victim's nationality and the extent of his ties to the United States were unknown to the agent at the time of the shooting, the en banc court of appeals erred in granting qualified immunity based on those facts.

Conference of September 25, 2017

Collins v. Virginia Whether the Fourth Amendment's automobile exception permits a police officer, uninvited and without a warrant, to enter private property, approach a house and search a vehicle parked a few feet from the house.

Butka v. Sessions Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit erred in this case by holding that it had no jurisdiction to review the denial of a motion to reopen by the Board of Immigration Appeals, where the review sought was limited to assessing the legal framework upon which the sua sponte request was made.

National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra Whether the free speech clause or the free exercise clause of the First Amendment prohibits California from compelling licensed pro-life centers to post information on how to obtain a state-funded abortion and from compelling unlicensed pro-life centers to disseminate a disclaimer to clients on site and in any print and digital advertising.